PS/Y’s Hysteria programme and Pump House Gallery presents the first UK solo exhibition of London-based Canadian artist, Zadie Xa.
Searching for a reflexive space where knowledge from migratory cultures can be transformed, The Conch, Sea Urchin and Brass Bell interlaces imagined and learned Korean folklore to create new realities. Filmic flashbacks, barely recognisable figures and looping dream states invite the audience to join Xa on a journey through her memory, Korean cultural memory and possible future scenarios. Using the transformative structure of the ritual - storytelling, rhythm, and repetition - the exhibition acts as a pursuit for states of ecstatic enlightenment.
The narrative of a displaced body’s return to a ‘homeland’ shapes the exhibition. Each level of the gallery marks a different stage of the journey in which the protagonist searches for an understanding of belonging but instead finds a concoction of excitement, rejection and bewilderment.
A red twin costume from The Sea Child, Octopus and Brass Bell (2017) marks the entrance to the exhibition. To the left of the costume hangs a mask by Korean artist Jung Sung Am. The mask represents ‘Bibi’, which translates to ‘Spirit of the Sea’ or ‘Sea Dragon’. Underneath the mask lie four shells and a stick. The conch shells were collected from Jeju Island, where they are harvested and then sold to tourists and residents by Haenyeo women (as female divers in the Korean province of Jeju, the haenyeo are representative of the semi-matriarchal family structure of Jeju). The stick is driftwood collected from Vancouver where Xa grew up.
These objects, alongside the fabric work Fishscales and Poisonous Darts (2016), a red pair of shoes by Benito Mayor Vallejo and the video trilogy Deep Space Mathematics // The Transfer of Knowledge (2016) function as an introduction to the rest of the exhibition.
The Conch, Sea Urchin and Brass Bell (2017) occupies the remaining gallery spaces and works across soundscapes, light installations, masks, textiles, and moving-image. An oceanic science fiction atmosphere is unveiled, and within this the figure of the female Korean shaman is introduced.
Xa’s The Conch, Sea Urchin and Brass Bell marks the beginning of PS/Y’s Hysteria - a combined arts programme that explores health and illness in contemporary society, focusing on issues of gender, race and cultural identity. Hysteria is curated by Mette Kjærgaard Præst and takes place in partnership with organisations and institutions across London from August 2017 until April 2018. For further information visit ps-y.org
About the artist
Through performance, video, painting and textiles, Zadie Xa interrogates the overlapping and conflation of cultures that inform self-conceptualised identities, notions of self and her experience within the Asian diaspora. Her intricate hand-sewn fabric work stitches together familiar symbols of yin-yangs, knives, lucky numbers and monolid eyes, all operating within a system of personalised semiotics. These exaggerated motifs are utilised by Xa to both combat and engage with Eurocentric perceptions of Asian identity and otherness and aspire to create new and alternative Asian identity narratives often fantastical and within the realm of the supernatural.
Zadie Xa was born in 1983 in Vancouver, Canada and currently lives in London, UK. She received an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2014 and a BFA at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 2007.
Recent exhibitions and performances include: HERE, Locating Contemporary Canadian Artists, 2017 Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, Canada; How to call the spirits, 2017 Agustina Ferreyra Gallery at Chapter NY for CONDO NYC; Rehearsals from the Korean Avant-Garde Performance Archive, 2017, Korean Cultural Centre, London; Crash Boom Hisssssss. Legend of the Liquid Sword, Block Universe 2017, Somerset House Studios, London; Thomas J. Price / Ebony G. Patterson / Zadie Xa, 2017, Hales Gallery, London; Walled Gardens in an Insane Eden, 2017, Sara Zanin Gallery, Rome IT; Basic Instructions B4 Leaving, 2016, programmed by PS/Y as part of ‘Hysteria’ at Cafe OTO, London; Linguistic Legacies and Lunar Exploration, 2016, Serpentine Gallery, London; Kind of Flossy, 2016, Assembly Point Gallery, London; A Rose Is Without a ‘Why’. It Blooms Because It Blooms, 2016, Carl Freedman Gallery, London.
PS/Y is a research, curating and public engagement group exploring the interface of arts and health sciences. PS/Y develops interdisciplinary projects and dialogue with artists, scientists, arts organisations, academic institutions and communities. PS/Y aims to create new creative insights to engage diverse audiences for an interdisciplinary arts practice that explores the relationship between mind and body in Western culture. PS/Y has previously been involved in delivering Anxiety
The exhibition is supported by Wandsworth Council, Arts Council England, Canada Council for the Arts and Wellcome Trust.
